


you who taught me the darkness will end

by housewife



Series: all the twinkling stars will shine on you [1]
Category: DREAM!ing (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Minor Mochizuki Yuuma/Nito Senri, Non-Linear Narrative, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-09-19 01:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20322643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/housewife/pseuds/housewife
Summary: As with all stories, there is a beginning.Takaomi and Touji find love somewhere between the habitable range of the nearest sun and that of the furthest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yes this is a fling posse stella au okay ill admit it but you have to trust me here. Please

Takaomi finds love somewhere between the habitable range of the nearest sun and that of the furthest.

But that’s not how it’s usually recalled, not in lace-woven words carefully pieced together above the crackle of a fireplace. It’s not, for Takaomi is far too dishonest with himself and far too little of a romantic to possibly attempt to intertwine his fingers with the careful threads of a story long left to gather dust; for he has grown out of most of his angsty teenage quirks over the years but not quite this.

Takaomi, maybe three years younger and counting stars in a galaxy ten light years away from here, would argue that there’s no right way to tell a story anyway, that it’ll never be as profound and life changing as the first time around. Maybe three years ago he was a bit of a hypocrite too, and maybe he now has to eat his own words to see just how sour they taste, because at the ripe age of twenty-nine Takaomi instead finds himself wanting to describe a love found between the warmth of shared body heat and the stardust in Touji’s eyes.

-

As with all stories, there is a beginning.

Before there are rings with careful etchings, late nights dangling from the masts of otherwise empty ships, and stories to begrudgingly tell your great-great-grandchildren, there is just Takaomi. Before there is a Takaomi and Touji, or even just a Touji, there is just Takaomi, and the brutal, blazing heat of the sun against his back.

“Grammy,” Takaomi murmurs, pushing through beaded leather and silently tapping open a chestnut gate, “I brought you some oranges.”

He knows he’s more talking to himself than anybody when he sets down the satchel and explains what else is inside, but the woman ruffles his hair and drops a few coins into his palm as he gets ready to head off anyway. When he does finally leave, after a half hour of chatter about his parents and her children, it’s with the coins tucked away and a few tea bags wrapped carefully inside some fabric.

The sun beats down again against the messy pavement, harsh on his face when he’s no longer under the solace of a roof, and Takaomi haphazardly wonders if the heat is damaging the rest of the food. (He only takes a _ few _ moments out of his day to check on it. It’s fine, afterall, as long as he stops by the nearest merchant now and again to fill the sack with ice.)

-

There’s more though, before that, because even before the Takaomi who makes a semi-honest living by selling Earth-imported fruit to grandmothers, there’s the Takaomi that learns to steal.

It’s definitely not justified in any sense, not when he’s twelve and bored and lonely, and even less so when he’s twenty-two and- what is he even doing? He doesn’t have some tragic backstory to singsong about in a theater show, and he sure as hell isn’t revered as the bad boy when it starts up. (He is, definitely, revered as the bad boy at one point in the future.)

But Takaomi apparently has a penchant for never moving on when he’s supposed to, and the government is too far up their own ass to notice a little bit of missing produce every now and again, so stealing is a hell of a lot easier than he first expects it to be. There’s boxes upon boxes stacked on the hull of empty ships, and he quickly learns that the nobles have far too much trust in their people to have any security around the ports. The ships don’t dock for long, anyway, unmanned and emptied after a day of unloading. Takaomi watches one night as they take off, from a hill nearby the port that overlooks the ocean, and his eyes focus on how their mechanical sails don’t wave in the wind during their ascension as they did in the boats they were based off of.

(He learns about the ships in one of his intergalactic history classes in high school, how they were tall and daunting when their sails smacked against the wind, but on Earth they were cursed to only rest atop the water. He wonders if these ships are somehow more depressing; cursed to live as a shell of what they were before.)

-

Takaomi is fifteen years old when he first hears about Vyraj, an almost mythological planet that exists on the outer realms of their mapped galaxy. It’s not noteworthy, at the time, listed out with a collection of other smaller planets known for their medicinal advances, but it comes up in conversation a few years down the road- both literally and figuratively - with a merchant selling him berries.

The man weaves a tale of two runaways who stealthily avoided family conflict by shiphopping until they got as close as they could to it using the government system, and then drones on regarding their travels until he’s telling a tale of young star crossed lovers who learned to rule in the absence of order. And Takaomi, for all intents and purposes, definitely, one hundred percent, is not a romantic. He’s not quite the optimist either, so he doesn’t really listen.

He does drop a few extra coins in the man's hand as he takes his leave, though, almost guilty for wasting his time with a story he can’t even remember the overarching plot of.

-

And that’s it.

Takaomi isn’t really a _ bad _ person, in the same way the sky isn’t blue when it's nighttime, and he isn’t a _ mundane _ person either, in the same way he says he’s never been to the beach but went once when he was five. He supposes if his life were a film, somebody would very easily be able to fill the gaps with dramatism and heartbreak and create a best-seller. But Takaomi is twenty-two here, and if Nito from his last period in school was still around, he’d still tease him for being ‘lonely and uncultured’, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. He doesn’t steal for the high, like the many others he’s grouped in with tend to do, and his hours outside work consist mainly of complaining to bartenders and stargazing from sketchy back alleys, but he knows people. At least five, maybe even six or seven. He isn’t lonely. Or uncultured, he guesses too.

Fuck that Nito guy. And _ fuck _not speaking ill of the dead, because Takaomi is sure that if he wasn’t already six feet under he would’ve caved and done it himself some years ago. His edgy persona is very blatantly only reserved for people he can’t actually hurt. Because he’s a good person.

-


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is shorter because i put some of it into chap 3 or scrapped it as i felt some wasnt inherently relevant to paint the picture!  
we going Airplane emoji identity crisis

At that time when there is just Takaomi, mulling on dirt roads and gravel paths, there is also just Touji.

-

Touji is intrinsically prince-like, in the same way he lies to the royalty that visit Veles about some foreign dish being his favorite meal. He bites his tongue and eats it anyway, because a noble should never be sharp-tongued or rude, but the taste is always just too bitter or just too sweet for him to really enjoy. He thanks his guests as they leave though, always, because he truly does believe he is lucky to be here even if it’s never felt quite right. He has the free agency to laugh when he watches a play that reminds him of his childhood, and he cries from the bottom of his heart when he visits another planet with people less fortunate. 

So perhaps, maybe it’s just a little bit privileged when he finds himself breaking under it all.

Touji is not lazy, and he’s not unhappy, but it’s a lot. He juggles his responsibilities with shaking hands and plastered smiles and too many sleepless nights to count, but it’s okay.

He’s okay.

-

Touji is probably not okay, he realizes far too late. It’s a little much, when the culmination of twenty years of untouched feelings suddenly find themselves wrapped up and on your doorstep for you to unpack.

But avoidance has always been his forte; it’s not real if it’s not there, and what does he even have to worry about anyway? His dad is sick, it happens, but then people in the streets start to talk and advise him with gentle smiles and…

Touji has only lived his life to succeed to the throne. It dawns on him, abruptly and clear as day, in the middle of a lecture by his father’s friend.

“Are you okay?” She asks, sweet as honey. She’s smiling wide but her eyes are empty, and Touji thinks he sees this same look ten times an hour.

She knows nothing about him.

He nods slowly, blinking himself back into reality, and she drones on about current events he only half picks up on. At some point she concludes her briefing, and he hopes the smile he gives her seems somewhat genuine. (He’s spent his whole life practicing it, afterall.)

When did he become so selfish? What’s wrong with him?

He loves the people of Veles, he has plans and goals and dreams for both them and himself, but he…

Who even is he, if not for his nobility? 

He hasn’t spoken to anybody as a friend in his memorable life, he doesn’t have a hobby he genuinely enjoys and doesn’t use as a nicety for visitors, and if the world were to suddenly collapse under his feet right now he wouldn’t know what to do. It’s… scary.

It’s like his world has suddenly collapsed.

-

Days turn into weeks turn into months and his world is, somehow, still turning.

Touji first hears of Vyraj somewhere in the blur of those months. He notes the name, but it doesn’t come up again for a while. The next he hears of it, he learns it’s come under new leadership. He doesn’t dwell on the names.

“The king is around your age,” His father tells him, somewhere in between purposely oblivious and a delayed disbelief, “You should be ready to take on my responsibilities any time now.”

“Yes, father,” He says, and he’s come to discover that the smiles can’t possibly be faked if he’s done them his whole life. “I’m prepared whenever you need me to be.”

Maybe in another life he’d feel pride at the way his father ruffles his hair, but definitely not in this one. Suddenly he’s far too aware of the burning in his eyes and the pounding of his chest. 

“I knew I raised you into a great man.”

Touji doesn’t think so.

**Author's Note:**

> i have been planning this for so long and thinking about it for even longer and i finally sat down and wrote 3k words in less than 6 hours so i guess this is my muse. i have so many plans for this au and also one for yumasen married fic but thats a special surprise for later ;)


End file.
